House Reschedules OVP Budget Hearing after Sara Duterte No Show Again
SARA DUTERTE – The Vice President snubbed again the deliberation of the House of Representatives of the 2025 OVP budget proposal.
The Office of the Vice President (OVP) is asking for a P2 billion budget for 2025 according to the Department of Budget and Management. According to the DBP, the budget proposal did not include Confidential Funds.
The 2022 Confidential Funds of the OVP was controversial for how it was rapidly spent. For its 2024 budget, the proposed CIFs of the office of the Vice President was removed. However, the 2025 budget proposal of the OVP still did not go through a smooth processing.
Vice Pres. Sara Duterte was involved in heated arguments with the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate for a few times for her behavior during the budget deliberation. She also earned countless criticisms from the people.
Sara Duterte’s book with a P10 million allotted budget for distribution hooked scrutiny from countless people. Her office defended the move of the Vice President saying that it comes with a good intention of enhancing the reading motivation of the students.
Aside from her spar with Senator Risa Hontiveros who moved for the re-allocation of some of the assistance program budget of the OVP to relevant agencies, Vice Pres. Duterte also had a clash with ACT Teachers Party-List Representative France Castro during the House deliberation.
Castro asked for the spending of the previous budget but Duterte refused to elaborate on the question. The heated argument led to the rescheduling of the budget deliberation. However, Duterte was no show at the resumption of the House deliberation of the 2025 budget proposal of the OVP.
Recently, the House of Representatives was set for a deliberation of the 2025 budget proposal of the OVP. However, based on a report on ABS-CBN News, for the second time around, Vice Pres. Sara Duterte once again snubbed the hearing.
Based on the report, other officials of the OVP were also no show at the House deliberation. A representative of the OVP came but there was no written authoritization. This led to the rescheduling of the House deliberation and it is set to be included in today’s calendar of business.
“We actuallly waited for 17 hours since 10 a.m. of September 23 up until maga-alas tres na po ngayon September 24,” Kabataan Partylist Rep. Raoul Manuel said.
The Partylist Representative stressed that Vice Pres. Duterte’s move is allegedly “a clear betrayal of public trust”. According to him, every elected official of the government is accountable to the people and is mandated to answer questions about public interests.
Previously, amid the Senate and the House having the power to defund a state entity, Vice Pres. Sara Duterte said that the OVP can operate even without a budget. The Vice President stressed that they are a small office.